Lecture 1: Tuesday 28 August, 16:00 to 17:00
Title : Order, disorder and entropy
Abstract : Since the middle of the twentieth century, the traditional picture of entropy as a measure of disorder has shifted. However, this development is not well known outside the Statistical Mechanics community. In my talk, I will discuss example s where entropy increases with increasing order, I will briefly touch on Gibbs’ paradox and I will discuss how recently developed numerical tools allow us to compute close and distant relatives of Boltzmann’s entropy.
Lecture 2: Wednesday 29 August, 16:00 to 17:00
Title : From self-assembly to cell recognition
Abstract : A holy grail of nano-technology is to create truly complex, multi-component structures by self-assembly. Most self-assembly has focused on the creation of "structural complexity". In my talk, I will discuss "Addressable Complexity": the creation of structures that contain hundreds or thousands of distinct building blocks that all have to find their place in a 3D structure. Experiments have demonstrated the feasibility of making such structures. Simulation and theory yield surprising insights that can inform the design of novel structures and materials. Surprisingly, the design principles for addressable self-assembly may provide a tool to distinguish different cell surfaces.
Lecture 3: Thursday 30 August, 16:00 to 17:00
Title : Entropy production and phoretic transport
Abstract : It sounds so innocent: `Heat never spontaneously flows from cold to hot’, but almost nothing in this statement is as simple as it seems. In my talk, I will consider the microscopic mechanism by which thermal gradients cause flow along liquid/solid interfaces. In particular, I will discuss the problems in formulating a correct microscopic description of such `phoretic’ transport processes. Phoretic transport becomes increasingly relevant, as experiments probe transport in nanoscale channels. It turns out that our microscopic understanding of flows driven by thermodynamic, rather than mechanical, forces is far from complete.
This lecture series is part of Entropy, Information and Order in Soft Matter